"To build a better world we need to replace the patchworks of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today deliver success with a society that provides opportunities for all. The world could be so much richer than the world we have settled for today." P268 Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

I prefer to read non-fiction to fiction. It drives my wife and kids nuts because they are all voracious readers of fiction. When I approach a book though, I view it as a dialogue not a monologue. I don't accept everything the writer states as gospel just because it's written in a book. I just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's latest book called Outliers. I had enjoyed reading his previous books The Tipping Point and Blink. To a great extent, this book should not be read who prefer fiction especially the Hollywood, mythic Horatio Algers stances of rags to riches. It could just as easily be called "Success: Mythbusters".

During my recent trip, I was intrigued to find out that the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System (MNSCU) combines its 32 institutions, including 25 two-year colleges and seven state universities to be the largest single provider of higher education in the state of Minnesota. This is very impressive as the colleges and universities operate 54 campuses in 47 Minnesota communities and serve about 250,000 students in credit-based courses. Overall, the system produces about 34,000 graduates each year.

MNSCU in effect brings all the higher education in the state under a single organizational structure. Technically though, each organization is separate. University of Minnesota, for example, likes to say they pre-exist the state. But I don't think this level of coordination happens elsewhere in Unites States. I know in my home state of California there are three distinct organizations:  The University of California, California State University system, and the community college system.

But even the community college system is not really a system, but a collection of independent colleges. In effect, they're all synchronized by a master plan that gets updated every decade or so. I think California and other states would be well served to adopt a MNSCU model because this model strives to meet the personal and career goals of a wide range of individual learners. At the same time, they go a step further with an “Accountability Dashboard”, job opportunities and networking, as well as publications and more to help provide value to students and faculty that are part of this extended network.

Bill Joy was a student at Cal Berkeley when he joined with other students at rival Stanford to create SUN. Bill is profiled in Malcolm Gladwells new best seller called Outliers. This book attempts to describe what makes people successful. Two factors cited are opportunity and commitment. Opportunity is defined as access. Commitment is defined by time.

I'm excited to have been at the St. Paul/Sun Center of Excellence opening because we are creating a place that provides opportunities for students to commit themselves to their success and the success of their local communities. Students will be given the opportunity to develop skills in Java and web development, Open Source technologies and virtual world technologies. This is exciting not only because of the opportunity for personal development but also because of the potential to transform how we educate students in the future.

The St. Paul Sun Center of Excellence is an example of Sun's threefold business strategy of:

• Building digital literacy which involves a continuum of learning to enable an individual to achieve his or her goals, to develop his or her knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in the wider society


• Building communities in which we support student and professionals' abilities to start networking, learning, and sharing with peers and experts


• Building technology that in turn is constructed back into the communities which in turn builds demand for digital literacy

Jared Diamond, a UCLA professor, wrote an a Pulitzer Prize an award winning book called Guns, Germs & Steel to answer the question: “Why did human societies have such diverse faces.”

One factor was innovation and the speed with which technology was adopted by a society. He writes:

“Technology develops cumulatively rather than in isolated heroic acts and that it finds most of its uses after it has been invented rather than being invented to meet a foreseen need.”

Sun was built on this concept as expressed by Bill Joy's law of innovation: "Innovation happens elsewhere". By embracing this law, we've been able to grow well beyond our own employee base.

The St Paul College Center of Excellence will advance technology in unforeseen ways that build upon the work of others. I look forward to seeing innovation happen.

Take a peek into The Sun Center-of-Excellence for Project Wonderland and Immersive Education at Saint Paul College, USA  

A next-generation "mixed-reality" teaching and learning laboratory that is designed to combine virtual worlds and learners in remote locations with live classroom activities.

One of the students present at the ribbon at the Sun Center of Excellence at St. Paul College in Minnesota cutting was Lance Daven. In his introduction, Lance mentioned he became Java certified in high school. I asked how he did that and he replied he’d attended St. Paul as a high school senior. I was familiar with the placement programs where high school students earn college credit by attending classes at their high school and then passing the test but this was something more.

Minnesota has a program called Post Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO); this program allows high school students to attend class at a junior college and earn credit towards both high school and a college degree. This is a great idea to expand opportunity and access more disciplined approaches then may be available at a local high school. It reminds me of a recent article I read by Newt Gingrich in ‘Time’ magazine. In the article Newt Gingrich argues high school is too long and that we should start students in college much earlier. Maybe he's right - at least some classroom success demonstrates possibility.

Another thing I thought was cool was someone was wearing a red “The Power of You” shirt. This program promises scholarships to fill the financial gap between educational tuition, expenses and other financial assistance programs. They put the average cost per student at $900.  $900 is money incredibly well spent to advance the skills and employability of citizens. The ROI on tax collections from the future earnings of those students is probably just a couple of years. It sounds similar to a program in Georgia called the “Hope scholarship”, but due to budget constraints “The Power of You” is under threat in Minnesota.

Finally one more note from the road. I curled while I was Minnesota. Not my hair. You know - the Olympic event you’ve probably seen at least once where people throw what looks like a round clothes iron on the ice towards a target, preceded by folks who want to make sure the ice is really clean by sweeping it. It's kind of like Bocce ball, only you quickly learn there's more physicality because of the penchant for clean ice, i.e. sweeping the ice ahead of the stone while running toward the target. (This makes the stone go faster and straighter.  Also, I was never sore the following day after playing Bocce like I was after curling. Who knew housework was so much work?  Minnesota was great. The air was cold but the people were warm, there was excitement all around regarding the opportunities for education and I look forward to St. Paul being a model for the next generation of students.

I had the privilege of attending a ribbon cutting event at Saint Paul College in St. Paul, Minnesota last Wednesday. Saint Paul College, a member of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, is a community and technical college that provides career and transfer education opportunities for more than 6,000 students annually. The Sun Center of Excellence just opened will focus on Java development, open technologies and virtual worlds for these students.

Even though Saint Paul is a two year college they have created what must be one of the first degrees in virtual world technology. They call it Metaverse. They define Metaverse as emerging reality or computer gaming simulation programming and multimedia animation skills, all intersecting to create 3D virtual worlds. They created two degree programs around Metaverse including Application Development and Application Design.

The one hour long ceremony was filled with speakers including recent college grads. It was great for the college to demo their product. (Which I'll write about in a future entry.)

This innovative school and program really demonstrated  noted business management teacher and thinker/ writer Peter Drucker's ideas in his book "Management Challenges for the 21st Century" (pages 150 to 152)
"... Any country can, at fairly low-cost, train a substantial number of high knowledge people. India for instance, despite her poverty, has been training fairly large numbers of first-rate physicians and first-rate computer programmers. But only in educating technologists can the developed countries still have a meaningful competitive edge - and for some time to come."

"The United States is the only country that has actually developed this advantage through its unique system of community colleges. The community college was actually designed beginning in the 1920s to educate technologists who both needed theoretical knowledge and manual skill."

"On this I'm convinced rests both the still huge productivity advantage of the American economy and the so far unique American ability to create, almost overnight, new and different industries. Nothing quite like the American community college exists anywhere else so far. Increasing knowledge worker productivity and subsequently increasing the productivity of the technologists, therefore deserves to be given high priority."

My experience at St. Paul College was testimony to Drucker's observations about the innovation and future that comes from Community colleges.  I'll say some more about about Minnesota, their MNSCU system, the PSOE and my experience Curling (It's harder than it looks!).

I worked from home on the Monday following the New Year holiday and noticed that my 14 year old seemed down when he came home from school. He wouldn't say what was bothering him.  At bed time I again tried to get him to talk. He said "school is boring".  I thought, Now we are getting somewhere". We had just learned prior to winter break that he has 13 missing homework assignments, but over the break he winnowed this down to five.

He proceeded to give me very specific complaints and recommendations about school. Halfway through our conversation, I started taking notes (which made him nervous)  because I was amazed at how similar his complaints and recommendations were to the recommendations in the book I'm currently reading called "Disrupting Class".

He said, "They don't make school work exciting or creative". When I asked for an example he mentioned history. He is learning U.S. history right now, and he said instead of focusing on exciting stuff like military strategies and battles, he said they put the focus on economics.  He also gave an example that instead of simply stating that Jefferson had to make cuts when faced with a massive budget deficit he thought they should have turned it into a game or role play of 'what would you do if you were Thomas Jefferson?'.

He also mentioned that he feels he is a visual learner - but they don't seem to teach him in the way that engages his learning style. I don't know who told him he was a visual learner or that there are different styles, but that is what honestly what he said.

"There needs to be a better reward system," he said. He gave examples by saying he wasn't necessarily motivated by a grade (which is why I am trying to motivate him or bribe him with an iPhone if he gets on the honor roll). He said he wants more immediate rewards or feedback the way that video games do.

A better feedback system, accommodating multiple learning styles and simulations are all things that Clayton M. Christensen and coauthors Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson discuss in the book "Disrupting Class". The widespread use of such technologies and approaches can't happen soon enough if I am going to keep my son excited about learning at school.

I've now lived through 2 different economic bubbles (and bubble bursts) as well as the election of 5 different presidents (where I could vote).  These experiences have led me to conclude that the 6 most dangerous words in the English language are:
"This time it will be different"

I love this web posting  from "The Daily Kos" that explains this chart for two reasons:  It helps provide historical context to what is going on in the stock market today.  Its an old adage, but of course the only way to keep from repeating the mistakes of the past is to study history.  This chart give great historical context.  The other reason I like it is because a picture is worth a thousand words and I appreciate creative representation of data to communicate information of value.  The picture itself isn't that unique but what it conveys is.

On the drive home yesterday I heard an NPR story from a Princeton economist who made the point that healthcare as an industry is probably one of the best to use as a economic stimulus engine.  The interview can be heard here. I think he raises a good point that, unlike many industries, the full economic benefit of healthcare as an industry stays in country.  By comparison, if you invest in the manufacturing sector through individual tax rebate checks, then some percentage of that stimulus goes off shore since manufacturing is done all over the world.  He argues that this is the wrong time to reform U.S. healthcare because that would reduce the GDP.

I buy his argument that healthcare is a unique industry to consider as an engine for economic stimulus.

I disagree that we shouldn't reform it or, at the very least, part of it.  If for no other reason than the economic inefficiency of the U.S. system where we don't have effective health information exchanges.   How many times do you have to provide the same information to healthcare providers that they then re-key into their system?  How many times are duplicative tests done as you move from one doctor or specialist to another?  How unreliable are we as patients in reporting our medical history, much less our current prescriptions that we may be taking?

If for no other reason than providing the economic resources to expand the delivery of healthcare services to those who do not have coverage today, economic stimulus through more efficient and effective healthcare information 'Systems' is a national imperative.  Systems here is capitalized on purpose - meaning the linkage of all aspects of healthcare delivery into a single patient view that is confidential and comprehensive.  The technology is there, we're providing it in Canada as part of the Provincial Laboratory Information Solution (PLIS) and the interoperable Electronic Health Record (iEHR) system. Not to mention the National Health Service in the United Kingdom where we help link more than 40 million health records for national interoperability.

All that has been missing in the U.S. is the willpower to do it.  Perhaps this will change with the new administration who based on this article may be considering this very strategey

I traveled to Brazil and Argentina last month.  One thing I look for when I travel internationally are models that can be expanded elsewhere. It's the “honeybee effect” of pollinating ideas around the world. The State of São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is one of these ideas.

FAPESP is the research foundation of the State government of São Paulo. It was created in 1962 and its purpose is to support scientific and technological research in the State. Its similar to the US National Science Foundation except its regional not national. When it created FAPESP, the São Paulo government’s aim was to “endow the State of São Paulo with an agency for supporting research that would be independent, efficient and agile in its decision-making”.  I don't know if they've documented the financial impact of FAPESP, but I suspect its existence is one reason why the São Paulo region has become so economically vibrant.

What impressed me is the foresight that the politicians had in creating and funding the organization. As I understand it, FAPESP receives a fixed percentage of the State budget every year for R&D. They invest based on peer-reviewed scientific merit rather than political influence. They even have an endowment to keep funding constant during economic downturns. Finally, they have a low overhead operation that results in a high percentage of dollars going to research rather than administration.

These four characteristics - fixed funding percentage, endowment, scientific merit and low overhead - should be key design points for similar endeavors. Research drives innovation, innovation drives economic vitality. Every government would be wise to create a FAPESP in their community -- letting ideas and research grow naturally and giving the government the opportunity to harvest the rewards.

No, I haven't just returned from "the Valley", but The Open Source University Meetup (OSUM) is the latest great idea in Education at Sun Microsystems. OSUM is a social networking and learning site aimed at bringing together students interested in open source software, whether it be learning, sharing or using open source developer tools and platforms. In a society where students are acclimated to using social networks to find friends, how better to bring them together with like-minds interested in MySQL(TM), NetBeans(TM), Java(TM), GlassFish(TM), OpenSPARC(TM), OpenSolaris(TM) and more. Beyond just a social networking site, OSUM helps students to connect in person through on-campus meetups and events, coordinated by our very adept network of more than 500 Sun Campus Ambassadors.

The results are amazing. Or simply "OSUM". Within the first two months of the launch, there are already 20,000+ members in the OSUM community. Students come to discuss everything on the site, high tech to networking. The students are sharing their interests, their code and their lives. They can use the site to find solutions, answers to their project challenges and even jobs. This is the backyard barbeque and work water cooler wrapped into one and I invite you to check it out.

Maybe you saw the story about American Express being granted authority to become a bank.  This enables them to get aid from the big bank bailout.  The question I have is, how can I become a bank?  After all, the reduction in value of my 401K prevents me from taking or making loans.....

When I was in Buenos Aires, I learned that the government, facing declining tax revenues from falling commodity prices, decided to nationalize the pension system. As best as I could tell it would be similar to the United States government taking the money in 401Ks and IRAs and putting it in the Social Security system. Since we know the Social Security Income isn't really separate and is used by the government for general spending, we can only imagine what would happen in the U.S. if the government attempted to do the same thing.

In Argentina, they protest
So, as I finished my last meeting of the day on 10/23/08, a large protest was underway out the President's home (it's their White House, only it's painted pink).  I went into the crowd to take some pictures. You can't really see the poster but it reads "Ayer fue la soja, Hoy los aporter jubilatorios, Mañana a quien le toca" or "Yesterday it was the soybean. Today, retirement contributions. Tomorrow, what will they take?" (The soybean reference had to do with a proposal to increase taxation on Soybeans as the price of the commodity declined.)

As I wrote previously, I decided to pay the annual subscription fee to use Plaxo to maintain my contact database and calendar online.  I tried to use Google calendar but it wouldn't import my legacy calendar and there was no one I could call at Google's cloud to help me.  It's free. It's beta.  They have millions of customers, so I figured I shouldn't put my calendar somewhere that I can't get help when I need it.

One of the "benefits" of paying for Plaxo compared to its free service is "Premium Service."  This means I'm supposed to be able to call a live human whenever I need it.  I've used it a couple of times and they were able to help me out one of the times.  Today though, I can't access my Plaxo account because I've had too many login attempts.  The problem is, I can't get the tech support line unless I'm logged in.  So all I can do is send an email and see if they get back to me.  In the meantime, I can only hope I don't miss too many meetings since I don't have calendar access.

The consumer price of  "cloud computing"  is enticing - but what's the price when the services don't work?  Do you or can you get support when you need it?  These support issues need to part of the cloud solution if it's going to work long term.

Educators are collegial by nature (that's where the word came from in the first place). Yes, institutions may compete for students and dollars or even U.S. News rankings, but by and large, I observe that educators and researchers are naturally more collaborative than workers in other industries.

Educators and Researchers have some unique challenges as well. They need more money than they have to get their work done (despite ever higher tuition rates). Just look at the cost of the Superconducting Super Collider. As a market, they are not typically well-served by traditional businesses because they are viewed as requiring low margins to be successful. Further, schools and universities by necessity are geographically broadly distributed so if economist want to collaborate with other economists they either need to do a lot of travel or embrace technology that helps collaborate from home. I think this need alone is what propelled the adoption of the Internet when it was still primarily a education and research network. Finally, institutions often need the latest and greatest technologies to get their unique jobs done and are willing to be early adopters to get access to it.

Since Sun was born out of the academy and we've been working with educators and researchers for the past 25 years, we understand these dynamics and have been creating communities of common interests to solve unique problems even before we had social networking technology.

The two latest examples of this are PA-SIG and I-SIG. Our researchers and developers work with customers to solve problems that wouldn't be solved working separately. It the classic premise defined by Alvin Toffler in his book Powershift (Published in 1991) where the consumer becomes engaged in the production of goods they ultimately consume. (He originally coined the term prosumer to explain this concept, not Donald Tapscott who took credit for it in his book, The Digital Economy published in 1995.

This is why we are so excited about launching EduConnection.org on October 27^th, an online community of educators, technologists and contributors dedicated to sharing best practices. We've got the experience and engagement of great customers that we want to expand to all domains of education and research.